Noncommunicable Diseases

I am with the department of Psychiatry, Makerere University. I am developing and testing a culturally sensitive group support Psychotherapy model to treat depression in HIV positive individuals. 50 depressed HIV positive participants will be randomized to participate in the group support psychotherapy (intervention arm) and 50 depressed HIV positive individuals will be randomized to the control condition of education groups in which they will be provided with written and visual information regarding HIV and risk behaviors with no group interaction.

In Latin America, dementia affects more than 3 million people, a number expected to quintuple by 2050.  In Bolivia alone, an estimated 40,000 people are thought to have dementia but less than 1% have been identified.  Public awareness, appropriate care and effective infrastructure are non-existent. The result: patients have an unacceptably low quality of life and families are over-burdened.

Community REcovery Achieved Through Entrepreneurism (CREATE): A new paradigm for recovery from serious mental illness in low-resource settings (Kenya) People with serious mental illness living in low income contexts often lack opportunities for meaningful employment and psychosocial support – key factors in recovery. CREATE will address this gap by developing a locally-viable social business model designed to employ people with mental illness. It will also support their overall function and well-being.

“Women could give hands to prevent mental disorders” is an initiative designed by Trang Nguyen and managed by Research and Training Center for Community Development Vietnam. Positive deviance approach is carried out by the local Women’s Union to promote informal care with focuses on early detection, prevention and rehabilitation.

Over two billion people in the world burn kerosene for lighting. Inhaled kerosene fumes are detrimental to human health, killing at least 1.5 million people each year. The primary users, women (who do the cooking) and children (who stay in the house), ingest the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarette per day. This project will study the relationship between kerosene smoke and child health more closely. It will also evaluate the effects and effectiveness of clean LED lighting and home solar lighting systems on health.

Some 665 million people in India and 22 million in Nepal cook with solid fuels, leading to diseases that cause 4 million premature deaths, mostly among poor women and children, every year. A commercially-viable multi-fuel stove developed by this project will be optimized for burning dung, wood and agricultural waste, reducing toxic emissions by over 90%. For more information visit http://praktidesign.com"